


empty hearts in winter

by kissingonconey



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 10:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1601141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissingonconey/pseuds/kissingonconey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a Promptaholics prompt: Sansa Stark has an all-female council, who may hate her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	empty hearts in winter

_1\. Brienne_

Jaime Lannister died to bring Sansa home, and Sansa will never forget and she doesn’t think that Brienne will either. 

This is an ugly, hulking woman, who carried Sansa from the Eyrie home, and they would both cry some nights, and neither would say anything. 

Jaime, Brienne would say, and she still says it sometimes. She says, Jaime would, and then she stops, because Lannister counsel is not wanted in Winterfell, but Jaime might be right Sansa thinks, but she doesn’t want to talk about how the Kingslayer killed for her and died for her, so she lets Brienne stop. 

Brienne wants to go back to Tarth and Sansa cannot let her do that because Brienne has been her protector, her best protector, for too long now. 

She promised Lady Stark, Brienne says, so she will stay. 

How many vows does one woman have? 

She has vows too, Sansa thinks. One to Tyrion, countless to her parents, some to Jon about the future, and one large one to Winterfell. The lady of Winterfell. 

Sansa cannot keep a vow, no one ever taught her about that. 

Tell me about Tarth, she asks, but Brienne won’t speak. Won’t speak for months and months until the woman finally says: 

Sapphires. 

_2\. Margaery_

Margaery was supposed to be queen. Three times over now, she was promised, but instead she came on a limping horse, carrying small Tommen, cuts and scratches on her arms (once someone takes a rose’s thorns, she has no defense, and her petals are easy to bruise). 

She begged for protection. Begged, her knees in the snow, and for just a moment Sansa let her stay there, let her feel the cold seep into her bones. This is Winterfell, I am the mistress here, and you will rot in the snow if I will it. 

But she always wanted a sister like Margaery, didn’t she, and someone somewhere had taught her to be kind, so she let them in, and Margaery kept slipping in after that, first into the hearts of the people in the castle, then into the council meetings, then into Sansa’s rooms late at night. 

She’s used to it now, the way Margaery trails her hands down Sansa’s neck, down her breasts. Margaery has that crooked smile while she does it, and Sansa thinks one day she might take those pretty hands and grab hard and a white lily throat will die in the white winter of the North, and rose will again take root. But not yet, not yet, it is not time. 

It always starts in her toes, and how Sansa hates the feeling as it creeps up her thighs, past Margaery’s mouth, and then up to the top of her head, which seems as though it’s about to explode. The first time she thought she was dying, and she reached out and then let go, but then she was falling back to Earth, and there was no time for her make a choice anyway, it was over. 

She hopes she will die in Margaery’s arms, by Margaery’s hand, because she thinks Margaery will at least bury her instead of cutting her into pieces and feeding her to he poor (because Sansa hears that is what they are doing with the dead now, and every morning she asks for news of their supplies and what can be given to the poor but the answer is nothing). 

Sometimes when Margaery’s hand is up in places that it shouldn’t be Sansa thinks of Tyrion, who is still her husband, Tyrion and their wedding where she wouldn’t kneel, and she wonders if she will ever, ever know anything close to love. 

Margaery bites her when her thoughts go there. 

_3\. Melisandre_

Winter is here, Melisandre tells her. And your fires are burning low. 

Are the gods angry, Sansa almost demands, but Melisandre is here with Jon’s blessing, and he loves the North and he loves Winterfell and he loves the Starks and Sansa thinks, despite all that she has done, he loves her, and for that she will put up with the red haired woman who tempts the world with the flames in her eyes. 

Are there ashes on your lips, Sansa almost asks. Every time you ask for death, does it fill your mouth? Do the bodies you burnt live inside you, their hearts beating with your heart? 

Burn what you need, Sansa says instead. 

And the woman does and the smell reaches every room in Winterfell, and Sansa turns her face, but she walks forth. She has always loved fire (every time her father made a fire the whole world seemed warm and Sansa cuddled next to mother and Robb who she loved best—oh, how cruel of her to have loved any of them best—and it was good). 

Melisandre’s fires are angry and waving in the wind, but Sansa draws closer and closer, and maybe it is a trick, maybe Melisandre knows, but Sansa stands there for long moments, the beat of the fire against the beat of her heart. 

The weather is hot in Dorne, Melisandre says. 

My place is here, Sansa says, but they both know she is only afraid, as she has always been. 

I’ll show you how things die in fire, Melisandre says, and Sansa watches. 

_4\. Arya_

Her sister will always hate her, Sansa thinks. 

Her sister is faceless now, always in the shadows, her little knives at the ready. Sansa leaves dinner out for her in their parents’ old room—where Sansa herself now sleeps—and sometimes the little girl, because of course she is a little girl, no matter how many people she has killed (and Sansa shudders to think of how many people Arya has killed, in fact, she keeps away from that train of thought because it reminds her of when she stabbed Littlefinger in the eye with her sewing needle and then stole his knife and drove it up his gut and who knew that someone else’s blood would taste different than her own) comes to eat. 

Her sister will sometimes come to the bed with one quivering hand reaching out, her voice whispering Sansa’s name. They have been apart for so long. 

Tell me the news, the news the quiet ones bring, Sansa says. 

Arya pulls the covers back and settles near her sister. 

Are they sisters still? 

She settles near Sansa’s body, and begins telling of what the traveling caravan leaders said over mugs of ale. She says things about wandering traders bringing news and the sadness that creeps along on dirt roads and Sansa wants to cry because those are the people her father wanted to protect. 

Sometimes Arya unbraids Sansa’s thick hair (she keeps her hair in braids always now, no more intricate styles, no more Shae at her back with the hard comb, no more Cersei looking her up and down to see if she is in style, no more mother with the soft comb, no more little bird Sansa looking in the mirror and dreaming of parties and masquerades and men). Sometimes Arya unbraids Sansa’s thick hair and lets the strands slide over her face, as if she is hiding in Sansa’s hair, and Sansa wonders if Arya is nothing more than a scurrying slip of shadow that must always be hidden. 

I hated you, Arya says behind the hair. 

I hated you, Sansa says. 

You’re not supposed to have Winterfell, Arya says. It shouldn’t have been yours. 

Silence. 

And you’re a Lannister. 

But Arya comes at night anyway, to huddle there in the big bed. 

_5\. Sansa_

She is her own counsel more often that not, relying on the lessons of her mother and her father and Cersei Lannister in King’s Landing (when Cersei was a terrible queen and Sansa saw and Sansa learned) and Petyr Baelish who taught her to cut herself open until the blood coagulated and she was empty and there was no way for anyone to hurt her again. 

She stays up into the night and looks at the icicles that hang from Winterfell trees and makes her choices when only the night can see the torment of all those voices in her head whispering—

duty, Sansa, but no 

it is honor, always honor and 

you are only a woman, use the few charms you have 

but wait 

Alayne, Alayne, Alayne, my clever girl, come give up all your kisses. 

These are the days that godswood is silent still, and Sansa wonders if she is still Stark.


End file.
